


timeship wrecks and space whales

by shakespearespaz



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Feels, Gen, Internal Monologue, Outer Space, Space Whales, also dhawan's absolutely CHAOTIC energy is so hard to capture on the page lol, dubious consent telepathy, i don't know what the timeless child is and i refuse to commit to anything, idk how telepathic communication works i'm only human, idk they wander around an aquarium together???, like i ship this but they've got a lot of shit to work thru, mostly just, obviously, so i just made an emotional climax with the master basically telepathically vagueblogging about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22329505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakespearespaz/pseuds/shakespearespaz
Summary: The Doctor is trying to process the events of Spyfall in her own way and someone (I'll give you three guesses who) interrupts. Featuring a color changing tie dye space whale and dubious consent telepathic communications.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 126





	timeship wrecks and space whales

It was the 15th sunset that she’d watched. Over the course of an evening she’d roamed from the snowy ice caps of Myrn, to the vast river deltas of Kilo Kilo 726, to bright city lights and quiet hum of Bos’ largest settlement, before returning to a gentle orbit over Earth, taking in that large golden orb sinking below the curvature of the planet.

The Doctor knew she was trying to force herself to feel something.

It worked. The kaleidoscope of colors sent a joyful jolt racing across her skin. The sky was so much bigger than her, the universe so much bigger. Every time the suns of a planet set, it was as if the cosmos themselves were keeping pace right alongside her. They whispered to her that no matter the damage, no matter the ache, no matter the turmoil, the celestial mechanics of this universe would continue to tick away. _That_ she understood. It was perhaps the only thing she did understand in a world that had too recently and violently been upended.

She knew where she wanted to go next. She also knew that she should invite the fam, but some things were easier to do on your own. She hoped they hadn’t noticed her distance, but knew they must have.

After withdrawing all her limbs back into the TARDIS, she set her course. A swift drop of the lever brought her there. Beyond her doors was the largest protected reserve for marine life in the galaxy.

There was little that space whales couldn’t fix.

To call the viewing complex sprawling was an understatement. It was literally an entire planet. Still she wandered the corridors that crisscrossed the ocean wide planet above and below water. She was looking for something, anything, that might restore her faith even a little.

She sat on a bench, watching the seaweed drift by outside. A large orange and green whale swam by, breaking apart into thousands of tiny fish halfway across the window. When space didn’t do it for her, ecosystems did. She could see all the connections, shimmering like the eels that snuck by in the crystal clear water. The links were tenuous and complex, but she could see the way life on one planet could connect to life across the galaxy. There was a finite amount of atoms in the universe, and they recycled themselves over and over again, in a myriad of ways. The carbon in these life forms may have been born in the same fiery young star as the carbon on Earth, or on—

“I always thought this would be a cute first date, but we seem destined for all our meetings to begin with mass murder.”

His aggressively purple outfit reflected so clearly in the glass while her blue coat blended in. She should have seen him coming. She twisted her head to him, but he kept talking before she could process his both familiar and foreign presence.

“You’ve been getting around. Sunsets? That’s a bit sentimental.”

“I prefer hopeful.”

“And do you feel hope?”

She refused to respond, fixating on the flock of diving birds deftly perusing their prey under the surface. He scoffed slightly.

“And the aquarium—“

“Marine reserve and park.”

“It’s quaint.”

The mockery was clear in his tone. He sighed and watched the life before them, chuckling as the multicolored fish outswam the birds every time.

“How long have you been following me?” she asked, her voice flat, numb.

“I think you know.”

Something bubbled up inside her, perhaps what she’d been pushing down, bottling up every moment she was around her human team. It spilled to the surface, gushing out the neat wound he always managed to make, that incision that cut straight to her core without hesitation.

“Get out. If you can’t appreciate some harmless sea creatures or the impossible accidents of the universe or the simple beauty of a sunset then…get out!”

Her mind was blank and words were hard. She was tired of this pain, and all she could see was him at the center of it.

She shoved the Master off the bench.

The shocked look on his face was worth it. He simply sat on the floor, brown eyes peering up at her, limbs sprawled. The light refracting through the water danced across his confused face.

She wanted to run. She wanted to run and leave him there. It was what she always did, wasn’t it? There was always another corner of the universe waiting for her, another sunset.

Not this time. All she could do was sink to the floor, back against the bench.

“You—you pushed me.” His indignation was clear.

“You sent me to another universe, stranded me in time, tried to kill my friends, destroyed our home _again_ , and left me a voicemail about it.”

He was quiet, too quiet, and she jerked her head towards him. His eyes flitted back and forth, wide and rich in the diffused light. Without warning he moved towards her, pulling himself along the floor with unreadable intent. She refused to flinch. He stopped just short of her, closer than she would ever let a stranger get to her but with no contact between them.

“You went to Gallifrey,” he stated. He broke out into a grin. “So, tell me? How do you feel? What questions are tearing you up from the inside?”

She refused to do him the courtesy of eye contact, and returned her focus to the watery world before them.

“None,” she said plainly, “I’m tired of this game. I refuse. I can’t do anything, so unlike you, wallowing in your misery, I will keep believing there is hope out there, in every piece of life down to a crab in its shell or microscopic piece of bioluminescent—”

“ _Stop._ ”

The sound he made was so guttural that she instinctually turned. His face was too close now to hers, his teeth bared.

“You can’t bow out, Doctor. You need to know. It burns through every cell in your regenerated body, just like your need to know the name of every stupid fish swimming out there. It pulls at you much stronger than your sappy hearts or your blinding sense of justice. _Curiosity_. It’s where I’ve got you, every time.”

She thought for a moment that he might touch her, and she braced herself. Instead, he just moved back.

“You’ll bite,” he said smugly, “Like your fishy friends.”

She was on her feet in one swift motion.

“You’re like a bad pet,” she spat at him, “If I give you attention, you’ll just keep doing this. If you’ll excuse me, I have a whole ocean to see.”

She tore off down the hallway, her coat flapping behind her. He followed, matching pace, talking without pause.

“I mean it when I said ‘I’ve got you.’ We’re the only two left, again. Those friends of yours are mere teaspoons compared to the oceans of pain we share.”

“We’re done with pain.” She barely acknowledged him, turning down another watery hallway.

“You don’t get to be done with pain! All that’s left is pain! So you might as well have fun with it. They’ll break your heart again, leave you again, like they always do. Or maybe you’ll get them killed. Either way, they’ll move on, and it’ll stay us. _Us_ and heartbreak. That’s the only reliable cycle in any timeline. Not even your cosmos can—”

“ShhHHHhhHH!”

The Doctor’s arm struck him across the chest. The action wasn’t violent, merely sudden, and meant to stop him where he stood. Her head was tilted up, watching the twenty story window before them.

“Look,” she breathed.

He did.

There, perfectly framed for them, was a massive whale. Its rough skin was subtly changing, the top of its muscular body the same color as the blue-grey ocean. Some patches faded into pink and purple, cloudy, golden almost, like sky clearing after a storm. The creature twisted upward toward the surface, displaying its midnight blue underbelly, which sparkled gently as it moved. Ever so briefly, an eye the size of the TARDIS seemed to see them, seemed to watch the two tiny, ancient creatures frozen before it.

Gracefully, with movements that betrayed its sheer size, the whale drifted to the surface. With a final flick of its wide, speckled tail, it was gone.

“That…” the Doctor sighed, struggling to find her breath, “That…was a Great Jovian Space Whale…”

She twisted towards her oldest friend, her hands finding his shoulders enthusiastically, the corners of her mouth tugging upward into grin that seemed like it might break free of her face.

“They can survive in water, air, and a vacuum. They’ve been seen in the sea, the sky, and space! And that…that was only the 42nd recorded sighting of them ever…and we…we saw it!”

He’d forgotten what it was like to be on the receiving end of that much sheer, childlike wonder. Her humans were fools, that much was clear, but he couldn’t blame them. That light in her eyes was irresistible. It hurt like a serrated knife to the gut. Part of him wanted to rip the bloody instrument out and stab her back, to destroy that spark of life that he could only feel doing the worst of deeds. Another part of him wanted to bear that wound for her, to maybe leave one sparkling part of this dark world still intact.

Her hands grew heavy on his shoulders, like someone had soldered them to his skin. He realized that her joy at seeing the whale had left her vulnerable, her mind open.

He intruded.

_I need to show you Gallifrey._

He tried to conjure up the images that haunted him, the ones that had driven him to do what he did. As soon as he touched the boundaries of her mind with the white hot memories of their broken planet, her defenses were up. He couldn’t feel the full weight of every resistance she threw at him, for the volley was too fast and too great. He could sense the edges of her emotions though, strong as they were, like the grey shadow of someone too far away from you in the night.

_Tea at Yaz’s, a friend in an entire sentient universe, the warm lips of her wife, the joy of meeting a new friend tinged with the pain of losing them, a blue box spinning through time and space, a shimmering whale in a moment that is your and yours alone, laughter and wonder and hope wrapped around her as a shield—_

He pushed back.

_Two childhood friends on a rooftop, a sky of impossible, uncountable stars above them, innocent and timeless—_

“Stop.”

Her voice broke. She yanked her hands away from him, but he caught one.

“Get out of my mind.”

There was no strength behind her words. He could feel her start to collapse, losing against gravity. He caught her. The floor was cold and she was warm. Trapped in a mind that never stopped moving, that simple sensation grounded him.

“I need to show you Gallifrey.”

He could feel her hair against his face, his mouth right above her ear. She shook her head.

“I’ve seen it.”

“No,” he said forcefully, “You haven’t seen why.”

The contact was a lot for him, and he couldn’t imagine what it must be like for her. She was tired. However much she said she didn’t care, he could feel her fatigue. Denial took a lot out of you. He didn’t push as hard this time.

 _You almost got to me, Doctor_.

Telepathically speaking, it was more of a whisper.

_I was coming back, to stand with you._

That moved something in her, although he could also sense her doubt. His foot was in the door, his tactics working. He shared the last moments of Missy’s life with her. Her reaction was hard to read, tugging uncomfortably at him like persistent nausea. Still, her mind was more relaxed, and she wasn’t lobbing aggressive optimism at him anymore.

_Gallifrey is very particular about timelines._

He debated dumping it all on her at once. He knew he could. He’d found her curiosity, and he had to just keep playing that note to keep her mind open. He could drown her in the truth, like a tsunami that gave no warning. He’d be left with only wreckage, but the wreckage would be his.

He started gentle, but that word was hardly in his vocabulary. He could feel her squirm.

_Easy, Doctor._

When he got to the image they’d shown him, the words they’d crushed him with, the lie that bled thru all of time and space, she started suddenly, both physically and in his mind. She responded in a panic, the negativity buried underneath that sharp smile burning through. He touched the fringes of her losses, the unshakeable pain of twelve lives lived and gone. It was the confirmation he had always wanted, that deep down they were the same. The revelation held little joy for him.

Her body caught up with her mind, and her hands were clawing at his, nails he didn’t know she had digging deep into his arm as she twisted, scrambled, away from him, as if mere space between them could undo the shipwreck of their intertwined lives.

He had her. It’d been his only consolation when he learned the truth, that finally he’d have the Doctor.

“You can’t deny it anymore.” He couldn’t stop his heavy breathing, the way the whole experience sent adrenaline coursing through veins, the way he thought his hearts might explode out of his chest at moment. “This, _this,_ you finally can’t outrun.”

The shock was still frozen on her face, as the blue water danced behind her. She gave a half shake of her head.

“You’re wrong.”

He laughed, involuntarily.

“I’m wrong?”

She was hunched over, every muscle in her body tense. Her voice was strong, though, and steady.

“I’ve been running all my life. And I’m really good at it.”

She pushed herself upright, that slight snarl curling her upper lip and scrunching her nose. That was new.

“I saw all your greedy little thoughts too. We’re connected, in ways that no one else will ever be. But we are _not_ the same.”

She catapulted herself to her feet.

“Don’t underestimate me. If there’s one thing I can do…”

She leaned forward, eyes locked with his, scorching, like the still burning surface of Gallifrey.

“…it’s run fast.”

So she ran. She ran past his lunging arms, and she ran down the corridor. She ran around the first sharp bend, and she ran out of sight. He could hear her, still running, feet against the tiled floor, running from him, running back to the existence she'd knit together with hope and faith and sheer stubbornness.

He couldn’t bring himself to his feet. He felt leaden, stuck to floor, with only the bright, blue world beyond the window. It was empty. Somewhere, distantly, he heard what he thought was the deep call of whale, or perhaps it was the Doctor and her ship, noisily disappearing into the fabric of space and time.

She ran fast, but he’d always be right behind her, ready when she could no longer outrun her own demons.


End file.
